


and let the world slip

by meerminne



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Fusion, Alternate Universe - High School, Banter, Enemies to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6017362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meerminne/pseuds/meerminne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Shut up,” Chris absently mumbles at him, eyes tracking number 19 as he leaves the penalty box. “Do you know him?” He points.</p>
<p>Mitch snorts. “Who doesn’t,” he answers. </p>
<p>(or: 10 Things I Hate About You, Mitch Marner style.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and let the world slip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [engine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/engine/gifts).



> I LOVE YOU, MY DEAREST. you are the light of my life and i am so, so glad i got to write this for you! (your otp is showing ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ )
> 
> this would not have happened without [rrireal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rrireal/) and [bluejayys](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejayys/pseuds/bluejayys/). any remaining mistakes are my own!
> 
> warning: brief, brief mention of vomiting! very brief.
> 
> (also, i know the actual "10 things" list does not appear. because mitch is enough of a mess as is.  
> i changed the age gap between mitch and chris to 2 years instead of 4.)

“Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.”

\- The Taming of the Shrew

 

 

 

 

He should have known, really.

Chris always finds a way to get what he wants.

 

 

 

“I don’t need to get tickets because _I’m not going to prom_ ,” Mitch yells down the stairs. He feels petulant with his arms crossed leaning against the wall at the top of the landing. His mother sighs heavily and drops a basket of laundry at the bottom step.

“Don’t forget to fold it this time, mister,” she chides.

“Sure, Mom. Thanks.” He jumps down the stairs and trudges back up to his room, dumping the clothes on his bed.

_mom harping abt prom again_

_sucks to be u_ Cliff texts back, the unsympathetic asshole.

_see if i get u any assists again_

He puts his phone on his nightstand next to a stack of books and a misshapen palm tree candle that smells like a pineapple. Looks out his window at the bare tree limbs shaking in the wind and flops onto the pile of dryer warm clothes, shutting his eyes and hoping Chris gets in for Christmas break sooner than later.

 

 

 

Chris’ presence is not much of a respite from his parents’ unending quest for Mitch to stop being such an asshole. “ _Willful_ ,” his mother says.

“Passion isn’t a bad thing, see. But, son, you’ve got a lot of it.” Mitch’s father comes out for most of his games and he can see him looking toward the heavens when Mitch gets particularly _motivated_.

_Spirited_ his grade school report cards say. _Mitchell is a very lively boy_ , Mrs Tremblay wrote in cramped handwriting scrawled across the page in letters home.

He guesses you could call it that, when he’s breathing hard, cheeks hot, and he gets a fucking persisting call his next game.

“You’re such a dick,” Chris says cheerfully on the ride back to the house. He’d snuck his way into Mitch’s passenger's seat before he had a chance to put his gear bag there. “Seriously, you need to chill.”

“Like you even know what chill means.” Chris had facetimed him during his freshman final exams, alright? He is very aware that Chris is perhaps the only person that will happily put up with him for any length of time. Cliff doesn’t really count. He’s not so much a person as an automaton created to play hockey and make jokes at Mitch’s expense. Mitch still gets him a Christmas present and gives it to him on the last day of school before break, slips open his locker with 30-12-18 and a hard yank at the lock.

Chris spends the half hour drive home from the rink chattering on about how he wants to take a semester off to go to South America and travel. Mitch snorts because no way in hell are their parents funding a several months long trip for Chris and his girlfriend. "They don't have to know that part," Chris interrupts.

And they don't, until Chris rats him out about smoking pot with Cliff last summer. He punches Chris in the arm and runs, tripping over the ottoman in the living room. He makes it to the doorway of the kitchen before he realizes he actually has ammunition of his own. He sticks his head back in to yell, "Chris wants to take a semester off with Alicia to see some caves and shit!" His parents’ heads whip back around to focus their glares on Chris.

He can outrun Chris, has been able to since he was fifteen and experienced the last/worst of his pathetic growth spurt. He'd started running in the mornings and adding extra skating in when he could get his parents or Chris to drive him to the rink. The day he’d passed his road test his parents shoved the keys in his hands to a mid-90s sedan that was moments away from the bottom completely rusting out. His parents’ cars had never seen a nasty sports bag or hockey stick since.

Mitch starts laughing, though. That’s his downfall. The look of absolute outrage on Chris’ face is amazing, he can’t contain the giggles. Chris hurdles the same ottoman that had tripped Mitch, curse his brother's long legs, and tackles him to the floor of the foyer.

He has bruises from the pinches for two weeks all along his ribs.

Totally worth it.

 

 

 

Except, you know, it’s not worth it at all when their parents call them down New Year’s Day for a family meeting. Chris is hungover and smugly wearing a pair of Mitch’s pajama pants while he waits for the coffee maker to finish gurgling. “Campus is twenty-five minutes away, you could have brought clothes.” Mitch is on his way out for an early skate, a poptart halfway to his mouth when his dad yells, “Boys! Family meeting.” Chris and Mitch groan in chorus.

“This is all your fault,” Mitch whines at him.

“Shut up,” Chris hip checks him into the doorframe.

“Pretty good for an old man!” Mitch yells after him, rubbing at his hip through his sweat pants.

Their parents are sitting on the couch with their hands clasped together between them, a united front in the face of two young ruffians.

“Now, boys,” Mom starts, looking at both of them.

“Mom, I really have to go, I’m sorry,” Mitch interrupts, crumbs falling onto his shirt. She side eyes him, his shirt, and then looks to their father. Mitch pats his pockets down with one hand to make sure he has his keys, eyeing the door.

“Your mother and I have decided Chris can take a semester off,” their father says. Mitch’s poptart drops to the floor. Chris almost falls off the chair he brings his head off the back of it so quickly.

“If,” he continues with a slight twitch in his right eye, “Mitch goes to prom.”

Chris groans, putting his head in his hands. “That’s completely unfair! No one’s going to go to prom with him!” Mitch and their mom look at him with twin disapproving glares. “What?! You know it’s true. Even Mitch knows it’s true. He doesn’t even want to go!”

Mitch starts backing out of the room, waving his hands in front of him. “Nope, not gonna do this. Hockey. Driving. Now. Not prom.”

“How could you _do_ this to me,” he hears Chris wail as he jogs out the front door and down the porch steps.

 

 

 

“Everyone’s just really stupid,” Mitch explains when Chris corners him in the garage that night.

It’s a lot easier to say there’s no one interesting than to delve into the fact that the only reason people know who Mitch is is because he’s Chris’ brother, navigating through his senior year as the kid brother of the lacrosse captain who graduated two years ago that everyone still talks about.

“I had to clean your breakfast off the carpet.” Mitch rolls his eyes and throws one of his ball hockey balls at him.

 

 

 

(After Mitch leaves the house that morning Chris is left staring in horror at his parents. “This is the weirdest thing you’ve ever done. What gives?” He’s hip to their jive.

“We’re worried about Mitch,” Mom says. “You and Cliff are his only friends. He’s eighteen and has never dated anyone. He spends all of his time playing hockey -”

“Or watching hockey,” Dad interrupts.

“ - we’re just worried.”

Chris looks at his parents’ earnest faces and knows he’s doomed.

“Why _me_.” He mashes his face into the arm of the chair.)

 

 

 

It’s fucking _bull_ shit, is what it is. Dylan barely nicked that guy.

Calmly explaining this to the linesman goes, well, not great. “I didn’t fuckin’ touch him, man!” He’s yelling, gloves pulled off and stuffed under his armpit. He did, in fact, touch him. It was only a little hook. Just a little one. He shakes his head as he skates away to the penalty box, tapping his stick on the ice in annoyance.

Up in the sparse crowd sitting next to his brother, one Chris Marner feels a smile start to twitch at the corners of his mouth.

“Perfect,” he says under his breath.

“What?” Mitch says around the straw in his mouth.

“Shut up,” Chris absently mumbles at him, eyes tracking number 19 as he leaves the penalty box. “Do you know him?” He points.

Mitch snorts. “Who doesn’t,” he answers. Which tells Chris _nothing_. But maybe he can get a name, at least.

 

 

 

_who’s dylan strome_ Chris texts Cliff.

_he doesn’t sell pot dude sry_ he gets back. Which is - good to know. But not helpful. Cliff is a dead end, it seems.

 

 

 

( **a list, in a Notes document**

**Chris Marner’s iPhone**

dylan strome

18

plays for community team

according to facebook goes to same school - share classes???

doesn’t sell drugs - big plus for mtg parents)

 

 

 

Dylan may not be the most observant person, alright? But he knows when some guy is lurking outside the locker room after practice, pretending to be on his phone with his hood pulled up, that something’s up.

“We got a problem?” He readjusts his bag over his shoulder. He widens his stance without thinking.

“Dylan, right?” Chris asks, tilting his head and putting his phone in his hoodie pocket. When Dylan says nothing Chris barges ahead.

“I have a proposition for you,” Chris starts. Which makes him sound more like a predator, if Dylan’s being real. “I want you to date my brother.”

“Okay, no.” Dylan laughs and runs his hand through his hair. He starts to walk away.

“I’ll pay you,” Chris half yells after him. “I’ll pay you.” Dylan makes a noise of interest, dropping his gear bag on the floor next to him, tilting his chin for Chris to walk to him.

 

 

 

They’re holed up at a Timmies close to the rink. Dylan is sipping an iced capp even though it’s still cold enough for him to be bundled up in a puffy coat, gloves sticking out of his pockets.

“So,” Dylan drawls, leaning back in his chair. The legs scrape against the tile. “You want me to date your brother. Mitch Marner. The mewling rampallian wretch himself.”

“He’s _unique_ ,” Chris stresses, meaning argumentative. Dylan hums. Scuffs the toe of a shoe across the floor. Huffs and rolls his eyes. “He’s a jerk, yeah. But he’s a good guy.”

“So what’s in it for me, except the money?” Chris had felt like a creep sliding his phone across the table open on a note that had a number. It seemed way cooler in movies when people did it with paper, but who carries pens these days?

Chris plays with the lid of his cup, snapping the spout cover back and forth. He knows how great Mitch is, how loyal, how funny. How much of a little shit he can be. Remembers the way Dylan had smiled and tipped the barista before sitting across from Chris with a suspicious but somehow shit eating look on his face.

“You could be really good together,” he says. He keeps his eyes steadily on Dylan’s instead of keeping his gaze on the table like he wants to. Dylan’s eyebrows go up. Way up. He presses his lips together.

“Why not?” he eventually breathes out. “I don’t have anything going on.”

 

 

 

Connor laughs at him when he asks for help. He laughs so hard he drops his phone and Dylan can hear him gasping for breath between giggles. He hangs up when Connor starts making little noises like he’s laughed so hard he’s hurt himself. “Fucks sake,” Dylan mutters.

Connor, as always, calls back.

He’s laughing into the microphone, mouth pressed too close. He manages to talk around the whimpering snickers.

“I would pay actual money to see you be nice to someone.”

Dylan hangs up again.

Connor is actually helpful, though. In the way that he knows Mitch and is semi-friendly with him, plays pick up games with him on the weekends and can be around him for more than ten minutes without getting into a shouting match. So you could say he has an advantage over Dylan. And also most of their school.

 

 

 

Dylan puts it off until the last day of classes before spring break. In hindsight this is not a Good Plan.

He realizes they have a class together, have probably shared a few over the years. He knows Mitch’s face - eyes scanning over him in the hallways before darting them back to him. He’s always smiling, laughing, pushing someone into their locker with a soft hip check before being bounced into lockers himself in retaliation.

He thinks about what Mitch’s brother told him. About how Mitch is nice underneath the jerk veneer. Thinks about the hundred dollars that could go toward a new stick.

Pastes a smile on his face, runs his hands through his hair before resigning himself to perpetual baby chick status, and plants a hand next to Mitch’s head where he’s leaning against a wall texting.

“Can I help you?” Mitch asks, annoyed, without looking up.

“Maybe,” Dylan hedges. “D’you want to go. Out?” He stops, curls his fingers against the rough brick for a moment.

Mitch looks up and Dylan has to tamp down the urge to smirk because he’s so _short_.

“With me.” Dylan finishes. He’s not expecting Mitch to roll his eyes, cant his hips toward Dylan in a slouch.

“Yeah, sure, okay.” Dylan feels his shoulders start to relax. “I’ll get right on that.” Mitch shoulders past him, eyes glued to his phone.

Dylan lets his arm fold to press his forehead to the wall.

He looks up Mitch’s team's practice schedule and feels like a complete creep.

 

 

 

“Fuck you, too!” Mitch yells. This is not how Dylan envisioned this going. Mitch isn’t telling him he’s right, for one, and he’s also not taking the gentle critique of his hockey well. At all.

He maybe should have thought this through. Everything he’s heard and seen about Mitch has heavy implications that he’s just as competitive as Dylan, if not more than Connor.

Dylan bangs on the boards, yelling back. If Mitch is going to get dickish about this he’s more than willing to rise to the occasion. All Dylan had done was offer some helpful suggestions.

And then Mitch started looking over at him, incredulous. Shouting back at him, “suck my dick, asshole!”

“If you spent less time chirping and more time finding the puck you might score more!” He screams. The furious look on Mitch’s face is satisfying, the way he throws his helmet to the ice with a thunk even more so. Dylan grins, vicious. Mitch’s face is flushed, red line across his forehead from his helmet.

“Why are you _here_?” Mitch snarls when he reaches the boards.

“Date,” Dylan says, hoping Mitch can read his lips well enough. There’s not many people in the stands watching, but the boys on the ice are yelling.

Mitch looks confused. Confused and skeptical. He shakes his head and skates away to pick up his helmet.

 

 

Dylan isn’t expecting any of the players, let alone anyone in the stands, to be there for his team's next practice. Mid-spring break is not a prime time.

There’s a huge sign, though. _Suck my [lopsided handpainted eggplant emoji]_ with a phone number scrawled across the bottom. He can see fingertips curled around the edges and a tuft of hair above it - before the sign is lowered and Mitch’s cocky smile is revealed behind it. He lifts a hand and blows a mocking kiss down to Dylan.

When he lifts the sign up again, shaking it to the music blaring through the speakers, Dylan concentrates on memorizing the digits instead of getting the puck.

Connor skates a lazy circle around him with his eyes on their solo spectator.

“Oh, man. I should go say hi.” Connor hums. Dylan feels a cold sweat break out at the back of his neck. Connor knows too much.

“Don’t you _dare_.”

“I have to tell him all of your secrets!” Connor squawks out when Dylan pokes him in the stomach with the end of his stick. He pushes off, skating backward. “He needs to know! Who else will show him your ugly baby pictures? Or tell him about your first kiss?”

“You promised not to talk about that!” It had ended with Connor’s nose bleeding profusely, Dylan stammering apologies as he miserably passed over a roll of paper towels. Dylan hadn’t tried to kiss anyone again for two years.

Connor, however, proceeded to get caught making out with Aaron Ekblad under the bleachers during a pep rally and apologize his way out of it, collar stretched out and hickeys on display. Dylan can’t even get away with being two minutes late to class.

At least one of them seemed to evolve to be a mostly normal, functioning human.

Dylan looks up to the stands.

“Shit,” he says.

 

 

 

_it’s dylan_ he sends from the parking lot. Connor had peer pressured him until he sent the message. “It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, god. Just say something.”

_hi_

“What am I supposed to do with that?” Dylan groans. His unhelpful companion steals his phone. He lets Connor tap at his phone until he hears a gentle cackling. He pins Connor against the window to liberate the phone.

“No, no, oh my god,” he hisses while staring at the screen in horror.

_charmanders are red, mudkips are blue. if u were a pokemon i’d choose u_

_no_ comes when he’s home, chugging a Gatorade. _i was gonna agree to a movie but u just lost me bud_

Dylan puts his head in the freezer. His phone vibrates against his thigh.

_jk did you want to go to that party saturday?_

 

 

 

They decide to meet there. Mitch’s palms are sweaty, hands clasped together in the passenger’s seat of Cliff’s car. “The hell, Pu,” he yells over the music when he has to kick empty water bottles out of the way on the floor.

Cliff gives him one of the worst pep talks in history. “You got this, man. Just - don’t be yourself. Or be yourself, who knows. Strome’s a weird kid.” He shoves him out of the door, plastic bottles flung over the pavement with his exit. Throws a couple of condoms after him. “I don’t wanna see you unless your face is attached to his face.” His nose wrinkles. “Can we forget I said that? Byeeeeee!”

“Oh, my god.” Mitch says faintly as he watches Cliff drive away to find parking. He tries to shove the handful of condoms in one of his pockets as he turns to survey the house. Considers his options as a) going inside the house, lit up with music trickling through open windows, or b) leave like a sane person.

He sees Dylan walking down the street, swinging his key ring on his fingers. Waits for the dread to wash over him, and it feels - different. It feels warm, bringing a flush to his face. He tries to focus on how stupid Dylan looks in a light flannel shirt, cuffs rolled up over his forearms. Hair a little fluffy. Like a Disney prince.

“Gross,” he says to himself as Dylan walks up to him, smile on his face. Mitch stares down at the hand Dylan holds out to him. “Uh, let’s go.” Feels his legs start to move him up the walkway. He’s acutely aware of Dylan catching up to him, striding behind him on long legs. Because despite being normal hockey player sized on ice, he seems so much taller standing next to him as they walk up the porch steps.

“Gross,” he whispers.

 

 

 

He has a second - third? - beer in his hand but he keeps forgetting to drink it. Dylan’s face is animated, cheeks pink as he argues with Mitch. He finds himself swaying toward Dylan, back skidding across the wall as Dylan takes a breath between complaining about brussel sprouts.

Brussel. Sprouts.

“I really like them,” Mitch says, looking demurely down at the flat golden beer in his cup. He doesn’t, actually, but Dylan gets this furrow between his brows when it seems like he isn’t sure if Mitch is being an asshole or not. “They’re my favorite.”

Dylan takes in a huge breath with his body angled to Mitch. Mitch can’t quite believe this is actually happening, that Dylan hasn’t brought up Chris once (“I don’t give a shit about lacrosse, dude.”) or that the playful banter between them hasn’t turned into homicidal blood sport yet.

He sips at his warm beer, grins and launches into a counter argument about why Dylan is wrong. About everything.

They’re eventually interrupted when two lax bros break out into a fight, overturning the coffee table in the living room. Dylan looks at the guys drunkenly punching each other on the floor.

“I think blue hoodie is going to win this one,” he says, indicating with his cup.

Mitch watches the way blue hoodie weaves when he’s on his feet again, wiping blood off of his forehead.

“Nah, green shirt all the way. Look at that - ” blue hoodie shoves green shirt’s shoulders, yelling, as green shirt ducks and closes in, wrapping his arms around blue hoodie - “raw. Power?” He lost his focus halfway through. “Are they gonna make out?”

“I - I think so,” Dylan says, just as bewildered as Mitch. Green shirt tucks his head under blue hoodie’s chin, hands clinging to his back. It’s probably a good thing their snapbacks are on backwards or the brims would bump.

“Huh.” He turns back to Dylan and feels his breath hitch. Dylan’s undone the top button of his shirt, collar stretched open as he leans on the wall. There’s a picture of a hideous dog behind him and Mitch wants to say something about familial resemblance but he can’t, because Dylan looks _good_. It’s all a bit much, to be honest.

He chugs the rest of his beer and winces when he automatically crushes the cup in his hand. Dylan laughs, and laughs, and laughs. “Let me get us some more, ‘kay?” He watches Dylan’s head bob through the crowd toward the kitchen.

 

 

 

He’s swaying to the music, eyes closed. Everything feels like it’s a layer of clouds away from him and it’s good, it’s _great_. It’s too loud in the living room, too dark to see and he can slip away from overthinking this like he knows he is going to. He’s here - with Dylan Strome. He saw their playoffs, okay?

If he were a weaker man he might confess to jerking off to some of those goals. God, Dylan had filthy hands.

And then Dylan comes back with more drinks, slips his arm around Mitch’s shoulders, warm and heavy and he smells so, so good. Maybe Mitch should have eaten more before coming because he feels drunk. He tries to grab the cup from Dylan’s hand and fumbles for a second before victoriously taking a cautious sip.

He turns his head, resting it on the crook of Dylan’s elbow. “Hey,” he whispers. Dylan leans down, tilts his head and he’s suddenly right there, all Mitch can see. His eyes aren’t always this warm and dark, are they?

“Let’s get you some air,” he’s saying, bumping his forehead against Mitch’s gently and pulling away - and all that Mitch can think to do is fist the fingers of his free hand in the fabric of Dylan’s shirt and pull him back.

Dylan makes a surprised noise when their lips meet.

Mitch keeps tugging on the fabric, rising on his toes. He feels Dylan smirk into the kiss and - “Fuck you,” he pulls back to say, goes right back to kissing. Dylan’s mouth is warm and his lips are a little dry.

It’s great until it’s not and he feels his stomach roil in warning.

He finds the hand not precariously holding the plastic cup tangled in Dylan’s hair. There’s a mouth dragging along the curve of his neck under his ear, and Mitch is going to kill a man if he has hickies. He pulls on the hair between his fingers until Dylan lifts his head.

“Gotta go, bye,” he mumbles, pressing an uncoordinated kiss to the corner of Dylan’s mouth. He untangles his limbs from Dylan’s. He misses the warmth immediately and snickers to himself when Dylan makes wordless complaints, eyes half mast and confused.

Miraculously he makes it to the second floor bathroom before he throws up. He’s not drunk enough that he doesn’t care, which sucks, but he’s just over the line of tipsy that he feels better once he’s emptied his stomach, curled on the bath mat and wiggling his feet back and forth.

He realizes there are cool fingers brushing over his forehead. “C’mon, up,” he hears and closes his eyes even tighter.

“No,” he says, burrowing further into himself.

“Mitch, come on. You need to drink water.”

“Fuck _off_.”

“Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?” Dylan says and Mitch _thinks_ it’s sarcastic.

 

 

 

He’s in the backseat of a car listing heavily onto Dylan’s shoulder. He opens his mouth and bites. “You little shit,” Dylan hisses and tries to push his forehead away.

He thinks McDavid is maybe driving them, or it could be one of those self-driving Google cars. He tries to squint into the darkness to see if there’s a robot or a person driving, can’t make out much in the passing brightness of the streetlamps. Mitch shrugs and buries his head between the back of the seat and Dylan’s arm.

The car eventually stops and the Google robot/McDavid says something that makes Dylan laugh, body shaking and dislodging Mitch’s head. He whines in complaint.

Dylan is pulling him out of the warm car into the cool breezy night and it feels good on his flushed face, but. He feels justified in pressing close to Dylan as they walk up to Mitch’s door.

“You going to be okay, champ?” Dylan laughs quietly. Mitch looks up at him under the flickering light of the porch. He hopes his Mom isn’t waiting for him behind the door.

“You’re not as vile as I thought you were,” Mitch says, rocking up on his toes to kiss Dylan on the cheek before he ducks down to fumble with his keys.

“Huh,” Dylan replies.

 

 

 

Dylan panics.

He talks to Connor about it who is completely reasonable, tells him to tell the elder Marner the deal is off, tell Mitch about it and see if they can move forward.

But Dylan - Dylan doesn’t think that will go over well.

And he likes Mitch, probably has for a while.

“You complained about him almost every day all of sophomore year, bro.”

“I didn’t even know him then!” Dylan argues.

Connor shakes his head. “You ranted at me once about the color of his eyes _being too blue_.”

 

 

 

Dylan does what he does best and ignores his problem.

His problem being Mitch.

 

 

 

Mitch gets it after the fourth unanswered text. He gets it, and that’s fine. You know. Whatever.

 

 

 

Prom is in three weeks and Mitch hasn’t talked to Dylan in four and that’s fine. They didn’t even really go on a date, did they? One party where he made an idiot out of himself and Dylan stroked gentle fingers over his hair means nothing. Nothing.

 

 

 

Cliff drags him off to the rink after class one afternoon to make him stop moping. He’ll take a pity skate, he’s not above that and Cliff knows it. He hopes Cliff will let him silently cuddle after, maybe will let him watch _Dirty Dancing_ without too much fuss.

He realizes it’s a trap too late. As in he skates out onto the ice to see a scrum of a dozen under-10 figure skaters in the middle of the ice.

And then music starts blaring over the crackly speakers.

The scrum bursts apart in a flurry of smooth strides and pink fleece jackets to reveal Dylan in a green coat and jeans.

_“You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty_

_You know I try but I don't do too well with apologies_

_I hope I don't run out of time, could someone call the referee?_

_'Cause I just need one more shot at forgiveness.”_

Dylan holds hands with two of the little girls, their hair in curly pigtails that bounce as they spin around under his arms.

_“I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice_

_And by once or twice I mean maybe a couple ‘a hundred times.”_

Mitch watches in fascinated horror as Dylan does a rickety spin, halfway through Mitch realizes he’s not wearing hockey skates. “Oh my god, he’s going to break his ankles.”

_“So let me, oh let me redeem, oh redeem, oh myself tonight_

_Cause I just need one more shot, second chances.”_

Dylan folds in half and a boy that barely goes up to his waist skates in a slow circle while holding on to his arms to spin him.

“Oh, my god.” Mitch - he. This is so _stupid_.

And the sweetest thing he’s ever seen. He thinks he might have cavities by the end of it, if Dylan doesn’t manage to break his entire body before then.

He knows the song isn’t over but Dylan keeps biting his lip and wobbling - Mitch skates over to him, dodging little bodies doing jumps.

Mitch catches him at center ice. Loops an arm around his waist and one around his neck. Kisses him, but Dylan pulls back with a chagrined smile.

“Hey,” he says, fingertips tracing over Mitch’s jaw. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Mitch says stupidly.

“Your brother paid me to date you,” Dylan says in a rush. “Shit, fuck,” he follows it up with. Mitch sees several of the kids give them the stink eye and hears an “oooooh!”

“W-what?” Mitch can’t be hearing him right.

“Chris asked me if I would date you, and he’d pay me. I called him last week and told him it was over - by the way, does your brother normally cackle? - and I like you. I don’t care about the money, I care about you. I’m sorry. I really like you.”

_“Sorry, yeah I know that I let you down_

_Is it too late to say I’m sorry now?”_

Mitch snorts. “You should’ve lied and we could’ve split the money.” Also, he thinks to add, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to Justin Bieber. Seriously?”

“Shut up,” Dylan groans. “Can I take these skates off now, are you sufficiently wooed?”

“You should ask these kids for some lessons.”

 

 

 

He refuses to go to prom out of stubbornness and yet his parents, so overjoyed that Mitch is dating - “Who would be happy I’m with you? You’re awful.” - they let Chris take a semester off anyway. Chris is smug and terrible because he is the worst.

Mitch takes Dylan to the rink on prom night, both in jeans and light jackets. Dylan wears a toque with a pompom on it and Mitch is disgusted by how cute he thinks it is.

They skate lazy laps around the boards.

Until Dylan starts skating a little ahead of Mitch, holding his hand and looking back with a smirk.

“Race you!” Mitch yells and drops Dylan’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell w me @ my [tomblor](http://meerminne.tumblr.com/)


End file.
